


He Thinks He's Alone In This

by sad_ghost_kid



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Disordered Eating, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Keith and Shiro have a definite past but the nature of it isn't specified, Medical Experimentation, Other, Pidge uses they/them pronouns fite me, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self Harm, Shiro is a hot mess, Suicidal Ideation, definitely gonna be hurt with only a little comfort bc yanno-- ptsd and all that, either way there will be shidge, not sure if i'm going for full blown shidge or just platonic, relatively in depth details of Shiro's time as a Galran prisoner, well as in depth as they can be with this word count
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-22 20:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7452367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sad_ghost_kid/pseuds/sad_ghost_kid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Shiro hurt himself. He couldn't always control it, compulsively slashing at the metal of his prosthetic arm, scratching at the skin of what was left until his hand was covered in blood. It became a nervous habit, twitching and picking, the frequency and severity getting worse with every nightmare, every flashback. </p><p>Or, a story in which Shiro struggles through his PTSD all alone, until he breaks. The others try to put him back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, so i'm doing something really daring here. I'm posting this first chapter without having the story finished yet. I know where I want to go at least, and it wont be more than two chapters long, but i'm taking a risk that i haven't in years by posting something i haven't finished yet haha. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you guys like this! My thirst for hurt shiro is unquenchable, so i got to writing something I wanted to see. If all goes well, which i think it will, the second chapter will be up in a few days

Sometimes Shiro hurt himself. He couldn't always control it, compulsively slashing at the metal of his prosthetic arm, scratching at the skin of what was left until his hand was covered in blood. It became a nervous habit, twitching and picking, the frequency and severity getting worse with every nightmare, every flashback. 

Alone in his quarters, sweat beaded at his forehead as he dug his nails into the skin of his upper bicep, biting his lip and tasting blood as he pried at the place where metal met flesh. The thick scars still ached, even without provocation, but scars were better than this, a useless stump was better than this. 

He cried late at night sometimes when he cut into his Galra arm; somehow, he felt the tears to be ones of relief. Relief at having at least some control, relief that the pain could ground him from the flashbacks. At times though, when the knife wasn't enough, it took all of his strength not to find a hammer and smash his arm to pieces, synthetic nerves be damned. But a mangled arm couldn't be hidden by long sleeves the way slashes could, and hiding the malfunctions in dexterity that his self harm caused didn't take much practice. 

In the latest hours just before the castle woke, Shiro would often dream of the experiments done on him by the Galran druids--memories triggered by the constant reminder of his prosthetic arm. When he slept, he relived the slow, agonizing dissection of his body. They had studied his human body before his rise to champion of course, but never with such vigor; he had proven to be a prime example of human physiology and therefore worthy their advanced interest. 

With scalpels, microscopes, pins, and forceps, they had dug into his right arm, right leg, and into his chest; cold scientific curiosity further fueled by every one of his cries. They studied his brain, his circulatory system, his digestive tract, his reproductive system--no part of his body had gone untouched, unseen. Every biological function was cataloged, every muscle twitch was triggered and traced to its origin, and every type of tissue was biopsied--all without anaesthetic of any kind. 

They stored him in some sort of stasis chamber from time to time, when the druids grew weary and needed rest or were simply called away, so that he would not die before they were done with him. It kept him alive, but it never made the pain any better, never permitted his body to begin the healing process. He really wasn’t sure when it started, but Shiro thought that his hair had started growing in white around this time. 

Eventually, they had become satisfied enough with their knowledge, and began to piece him back together. Their study of him had proven thorough, as his leg and chest typically only ached when he experienced changes in pressure or pushed himself far past his limits. However, Shiro knew that his arm had been beyond repair--both from what few words in Galran the druids spoke that he could understand, and from the distinct lack of feeling in that arm that arose towards the end of their studies. Thus, the prosthetic experiments began. 

Though Shiro did not know how long their experiments had lasted, he was aware that the process of studying his human body’s reactions to Galran prosthetics did not last nearly as long. In fact, as far as he could tell, Galran tech had been quite compatible with his biology. Shiro wasn’t sure if they had created tech based off of his biometrics right off the bat, or if they had initially given him prosthetics meant for Galran soldiers. 

The first prosthetic had been a neural interface attached to the base of his neck that relayed motor information to a holographic arm. He still hadn’t healed enough for battle trials by that point, but they had forced him to spend countless hours instructing the arm to perform basic motor tasks. 

The second prosthetic sent it’s needle-like interface in through the stump of his arm, disrupting the healing and causing thick, painful scar tissue to erupt--they studied that too, of course. By the fourth iteration, he had been gifted with a bare bones metal arm that had basic capabilities--he defended his title as champion twice with that arm. It was the sixth prosthetic that was the one he had today, and of the six, it’s insertion had been, by far, the most traumatic. He could still feel base of the arm being drilled into bone, feel the arm's synthetic nerves inserting themselves into his flesh and connecting to his nervous system, going deeper than any previous prosthetic they had given him. It had felt like a forest fire, with the blaze leaping further and further up a tree's branches until nothing remained. The experiments had ended shortly after the installation of his new arm, only hours before he was to defend his title once more, only days before he escaped…

During the daytime hours, Shiro was typically able to keep himself together. He started his day with one armed push-ups (the damaged prosthetic couldn't quite hold his weight anymore) and always kept on high alert for trouble, be it a Galra invasion, Lance and Keith bickering, or trying to locate whatever strange place Pidge had fallen asleep in. He trained regularly and took tasks from Coran by the list-full, preferring to be alone but never more than a comm call away. As far as he was aware, the team saw his behavior as that of a diligent and dedicated leader, not as a man who was literally fraying at the seams. 

The busywork he distracted himself with was usually physically draining, resulting in exhaustion and hunger. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the memories kept him from getting restful sleep, if any at all, the pain sometimes prevented him from eating enough. Shiro would lay in his bunk after dinner, starving but sick from what little he managed to get down. Every day he ate less and less. Sometimes the green food goo reminded him of the innards of other Galran prisoners, of gore staining the arena where he was champion. He was a strong enough man to get past that reminder, when it came alone, but the damaged nerves in flesh and metal were unpredictable, and the flares of pain made his stomach churn. Together, the pain and flashbacks were working to destroy him.

It took weeks, but Shiro felt himself losing his strength, losing his will. He could keep up his bravado for now, but he didn’t know for how long.

...

“Has anyone seen Shiro?” Pidge asked one evening at dinner, looking concerned. The Voltron leader had been skipping group meals a lot lately, usually only showing up for breakfast.

Lance looked around the spacious dining area, as if just noticing that the man in question had not showed up--with Hunk’s cooking skills, he may not have actually noticed. “Shit, he’s not here?”

“He hasn’t been showing up for meals lately,” Pidge supplied, taking Lance’s expression as genuine obliviousness.

“Really? Since when?” 

Keith sent his elbow sharply into Lance’s shoulder, “Pretty much the whole week, dumbass. Which you would’ve noticed if you weren’t such a glutton with your face stuck in your bowl.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with getting stuck in a bowl of food!” defended Hunk, receiving an agreeing nod from Pidge and a mildly exasperated head shake from Coran.

Ignoring Hunk, Lance pressed his palms flat to the table, ready to stand. His temper didn’t need much provocation when Keith was involved. “Say that again, mullet face! You wanna take this outside or what?” Keith seemed unamused.

“Paladins, please,” bid Allura, looking only at Lance, “I passed by Shiro on the way here. He said that he still had too much work to do and would eat later.”

“That’s what he said at lunch,” mused Hunk.

Pidge’s concern was growing. “And last night... I’ll bring him a plate after dinner,” they decided. 

Everyone seemed content at that, and went back to their food. It’s not like they could demand Shiro, or anyone really, to show up to group meals, after all. 

After dinner, which had been yet another of Hunk’s intriguing creations, Pidge took a bowlful and went in search of Shiro. Allura had last seen him down near the lion bays, but he may have moved in the hour since. Sure enough, Pidge found Shiro at the mouth of the entrance to the black lion’s hangar, tinkering with the wires of an open panel near the floor. 

“If you’re trying to minimize the time the zipline and pods take to get into the lions, don’t bother,” Pidge started, earning a bodily start from Shiro. They brushed it off as a typical effect of being the quietest member of the team. “I’ve already tried. Five times. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the ship’s crystal. That, or the lions worry about us and won’t let them go faster.”

Shiro stood up halfway through Pidge’s explanation, feeling a rush of dizziness as gravity pulled blood from his brain--a feeling he knew came from not eating enough. His back hit the wall in a steadying motion and he crossed his arms over his chest, making the whole thing seem nonchalant and intentional. Pidge didn’t seem to notice. 

“Oh, since you didn’t show up for dinner I brought you some. Still not sure what it is, but it’s pretty good,” Pidge explained, setting the bowl and a napkin with utensils down on an upturned crate. Shiro caught a whiff of the hot food and if it wasn’t for the backflip his stomach did, he thought he might have actually enjoyed it. The color and texture frankly looked like something that crawled out of a sewage treatment plant, but it smelled vaguely of caramelized onions and scrambled eggs. Could be worse. 

“Thanks, Pidge,” Shiro said with a small smile, hating himself for hoping that the green paladin wouldn’t linger. His arm burned in its position crossed over his chest from damage done to it the night before. 

Thankfully, Pidge didn’t stay, because Shiro couldn’t even consider touching the food that they brought. 

...

Several hours later, Pidge sat tangled within the wires of the computer they had been tinkering with, sound asleep. They had ended up tucked away near the kitchens, writing pages of code before having dozed off. By sheer luck, the sound of oncoming footsteps woke Pidge from what was actually a rather uncomfortable position. Their neck and shoulders ached as they sat up, silently cursing their remarkable ability to fall asleep in the most inconvenient circumstances. Halfway through a stretch, Pidge became aware of the sound that woke them: heavy, oncoming footsteps. Someone was headed for the kitchen. Was it Hunk itching for a midnight snack? No, the footsteps did not sound lumbering enough to be him. Shiro, then? 

A quick glance around the corner revealed the footsteps to indeed belonged to Shiro, who was holding a bowl in his hand. Ah, the dishes from dinner. After a moment, though, Pidge realized that the bowl was still full, the food brimming over the top. Curiosity and concern getting the best of them, Pidge decided to stay hidden and see what Shiro was up to. Maybe he was just going to reheat his food then eat it? Something told Pidge otherwise, though. 

Keeping low and quiet, Pidge rushed to the kitchen doorway after Shiro had gone through it. The black paladin walked past the Altean equivalent of a microwave without stopping for even a moment, going straight to the garbage chute and emptying the bowl. He then washed the dish and put it back into its cabinet, before turning to leave the kitchen. Pidge stayed outside the doorway just long enough to see that Shiro didn’t make a move to get any fresh food either. Wasn’t he hungry?

Something wasn’t right; Pidge couldn’t just brush this off, they had to investigate. Shiro was a part of the team, and deserved to be looked after as much as anyone else. And so, Pidge decided to start keep tabs on Shiro. Definitely not stalking or invading privacy, just keeping tabs on the man’s routine to make sure he was okay. 

As it was the middle of the night, Pidge expected Shiro to head to his quarters. Instead, he made his way, at a slower pace than Pidge assumed to be his norm, to the bridge’s observation deck. They watched from afar as Shiro sat down on the floor and looked up at the stars. His back faced Pidge, so they couldn’t really tell, but it looked like Shiro was holding his right arm, the prosthetic, to his chest. How strange. 

After a good forty five minutes of watching Shiro stargaze, Pidge caught themselves nodding off. It would seem that, from the get go, observing Shiro was going to be harder than they thought. Not wanting to give themselves away though, Pidge had to call it a night and retreat. In the very least, resuming their concern-driven tab keeping during the waking hours could still be helpful. Trying not to mentally catastrophize about leaving Shiro alone, Pidge retreated to their quarters. 

...

Unaware of his tail, Shiro sat at the observation deck for hours, holding his lacerated arm to his chest to keep it from trembling. Additionally, he gripped his forearm, to keep himself from digging his nails into his bicep and dislodging what few scabs had been able to form. He distracted his mind by plotting constellations in the unfamiliar skies until he could no longer stay awake. For fear of nightmares, he did not want to sleep, but it was better to nod off in bed than in the middle of the castle bridge.

Unsteadily, Shiro rose from the floor to begin the trek to his room. The nausea had been getting worse lately, and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast; and even then, that had just been a few bites and a lot of swirling the food around his plate. It had been like that for almost four days now. He was dizzy and exhausted, but every starved thought of food made his stomach churn. The lack of nutrients made him irritable, but really only with himself. He berated himself for being so weak, for feeling this way even though he survived. He got out, and he was alive; he shouldn’t let being held captive get to him. He wasn’t a prisoner anymore, he had nothing to be afraid of. It was over and done with, so how dare his mind and body react like it never ended? 

It was the angered thoughts that drove him to self harm when he reached his quarters that night. Not flashbacks or the compulsion to free himself from the prosthetic arm. Shiro was just angry at himself for being broken, so he took it out on his flesh. If he couldn’t stop feeling this way, then he could at least punish his body for it. It was only by pure luck that when he nicked the artery in his arm, he was able to stop the bleeding before he got too close to fainting. 

At least the blood loss helped him to sleep without too many dreams.

...

Knowing that Shiro was always the first paladin to wake, Pidge set their alarm to for what they assumed to be the same time--at least an hour before anyone else even started to get up. Waking up early was not exactly easy, but the growing concern with a basis that they couldn’t quite pinpoint was growing. They knew for certain that Shiro was struggling, but with what and how severely was not clear. 

On their way to their quarters after following Shiro to the observation deck, Pidge searched the information database on a tablet brought from Earth for details about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They had learned about PTSD in the health course back at the Galaxy Garrison, but considering they were more interested in finding their family, they didn’t pay much attention. But PTSD was relevant to prisoners of war, and Shiro had been held captive for over a year. And judging alone by the scar across Shiro’s nose, his briefly mentioned time as an arena champion, and the fact that he had lost an entire arm, that year couldn’t have been a walk in the park. As far as Pidge could tell from their minimal observation, common post traumatic symptoms like insomnia, social isolation, exaggerated startle reflex, and maybe even flashbacks seemed to be something Shiro was experiencing. Pidge’s intuition, however, felt like something more was happening here, and the knot in their stomach only tightened. Between worry for their friend and their imagination’s remarkable ability to conjure up images of what Shiro’s time as a Galran prisoner may have been like, Pidge didn’t get much sleep. 

So when their alarm went off the following morning, it was a good thing they were close enough to wakefulness to not hit the snooze button, or sleep through the alarm entirely. Still in pj’s, Pidge trudged out of their room towards the bathroom. Their glasses were on crooked and their oversized pajama pants dragged on the floor, when they sleepily looked in the direction of Shiro’s quarters. In the split second it took to register what they were seeing, Pidge snapped into full wakefulness and shock. 

Halfway through his open door, Shiro lay in a heap on the floor, unmoving.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it looks like we're going in for three chapters guys. and i'm sorry but there's not much comfort in this chapter. a lot more dialogue though! and a good portion of shiro basically thinking subconsciously? whatever it is, it works. 
> 
> i'm starting to worry for you all because i just don't know if there's gonna be all that much comfort at the end even. i hope everyone will be okay haha
> 
> also, thank you all SO MUCH for so many views, kudos, and comments! in my ten years of writing, i have never gotten such a positive reception for a story, and all of you wonderful people are making me feel so loved. so THANK YOU! <3

For all intents and purposes, he hadn’t eaten in four days. He had come close to fainting from blood loss a few hours ago, and he wasn’t really sleeping anymore. It was a miracle Shiro made it out of bed at all, his alarm blaring from its strategic position across the room. He stumbled and almost fell as he got up, not even bothering to attempt to direct blame to the sheets that had fallen to the floor. He knew this was his fault, but he couldn’t make it stop, didn’t deserve to make it stop. He was so weak…

Knowing that his dominant side wasn’t up for the task, he reached for the alarm clock with his left hand; regardless, his right arm spasmed in pain. Without any provocation, the machinery within whirred and clicked painfully; he must’ve damaged something vital in his self harm only hours before. Hissing a curse under his breath, he brought his prosthetic arm to his chest, gripping it to try to still its trembling. Ignoring the lightheadedness he felt, Shiro turned to leave the room. He hadn’t even bothered taking off his shoes last night, which was fine, because it meant he’d get to the training deck that much sooner. 

The door slid open with a quiet whoosh as he approached it--he must’ve forgotten to lock it when he came back. Lightheaded or not, starving or not, Shiro still had a workout regimen to uphold. Even if his right arm could be of no use to him, hanging limp at his side, he still needed to be able to rely on the rest of his body, on his own human strength. 

And yet, that strength failed him as he stumbled again. Too weak to catch himself, Shiro’s legs crumpled beneath him and he went down hard. He landed on his right shoulder, halfway through the door of his quarters. Excruciating pain radiated through his synthetic nerves as his prosthetic hit the floor, sending pain signals that were almost stronger than the ones generated by his natural nerves. Ever in denial of his weakened state, he bit back a cry as he hit the floor, head throbbing in agony. 

Even though he had simply fallen to the floor, Shiro felt like he had smashed head on into his lion. The pain was so much. Too much. Blackness gathered at the edges of his vision. He felt like he was going to be sick, but there was nothing for his stomach to rid itself of. Hot tears fell from his eyes as he hazily tried to push himself up. He managed to get his left arm to cooperate, to start to push himself up, but the resulting shift in his right was too much. He couldn’t hold back the gasp this time and the edges of his vision closed in on him. Lightheadedness, pain, and the weakness of his body eventually claimed him as he laid there, halfway through his bedroom door. 

...

Shiro faded back into consciousness at the feeling of being rolled over onto his back. He wasn’t strong enough to even open his eyes, but he knew he wasn’t alone, that he had been found out. Of the words he could process, he heard a quiet, “Oh my god,” and then a louder, “Shiro, wake up!” from above him. There were small hands shaking his shoulders. He drifted back out again after that though, simply too weak to stay awake any longer.

He came to again to the feeling of running. Why was he running? He was running but he couldn’t feel his legs moving? Running, running; the jostling of it hurt his arm. Was he being carried? Where were they taking him? He hoped it wasn’t back to his cell… He could’ve sworn he made it out...

Shiro woke again only in time to be overcome with cold. It made his arm burn; he would’ve yelled to make it stop if he could only find his voice. Had that already been frozen away? Cold, cold, cold...

...

Pidge rushed to Shiro’s side when they found him, rolling him over quickly but gently. Why was he unconscious? What had happened to him? Was he hurt? 

“Oh my god. Oh my god. Shiro? Shiro, wake up! Hey, wake up!” Pidge exclaimed, shaking the other paladin’s shoulders. 

Shiro groaned in response, eyelids fluttering for just a moment, before he became completely unresponsive. This wasn’t good. Overwhelmed with concern and dread, Pidge tried to get an idea of what was wrong before they went to get help. It didn’t seem to be the case, but if Shiro was bleeding out, they couldn’t just leave him, even if it was to get help. 

Pulling up his sleeves to check for damage, Pidge found nothing worrisome on Shiro’s left arm, but choked on their breath when they saw the man’s right arm. The metal prosthetic was all but shredded, full of deep gouges and slices. Some were short, only a few inches long, but others arched up the whole length of his inner forearm. Pushing the sleeve up further revealed even more damage, extending even into the flesh of Shiro’s bicep. The skin was thoroughly bandaged, but the bandages were speckled and stained with blood, betraying the fresh damage underneath. 

In such a prone position, Shiro looked like he was on death’s door. Pidge hadn’t realized how sunken in his cheeks had become, how dark the circles under his eyes were, how pale he was. Shiro’s breathing was shallow and a little uneven. With him looking like this, so broken, how had they not seen this coming? How had no one noticed? How could they all have been so caught up in themselves to not see Shiro’s suffering? 

Because something this severe couldn’t have happened overnight. 

...

As much as they hated to leave Shiro, Pidge couldn’t get the paladin to the medical bay on their own. The closest wall console wasn’t far, but it was around a corner; Pidge’s worry and the leaden feeling in their stomach only seemed to grow. It took only about thirty seconds to get the console to send out an emergency alarm through the castle, and another thirty to tell everyone where to come to. The hallway lights flickered to red, broadcasting Shiro’s need for help through every corridor; the whole castle resounded with devastation and anxiety. Relayed through the green lion, Pidge could even sense the black lion’s acute distress. 

Alarm sent, Pidge returned to Shiro’s side; as far as they could tell, nothing had changed. 

Keith was the first to arrive, wearing nothing but a tank top and boxers, hair askew, and a wild look of panic in his eyes. “Shiro!” he wheezed, all but skidding on his knees as he came to the black paladin’s side. Even taking their own feelings into account, Pidge expected Keith’s worry and devastation to be the most severe, considering his and Shiro’s past. Keith had known him the longest, known him before the Kerberos mission… If Shiro didn’t recover, it would break Keith. But now, as always, was not the time to catastrophize. Shiro was going to be fine, he had to be. 

“What happened?!” Keith demanded, clearly fighting back tears. As gently as he could, he pulled Shiro up into his lap, so that his head was resting on Keith’s thighs. Unsettlingly, the movement didn’t bring even the slightest of stirring from Shiro. 

Pidge sighed, trying to calm their racing heart with forced steady breaths. “I just found him like this. I’ll explain more when everyone gets here.”

Impatient but knowing it didn’t get them anywhere to have Pidge explain the situation five times, Keith gave a harsh nod. He moved to run his fingers through Shiro’s hair, the sight of which making Pidge realize that they were holding Shiro’s hand to their chest. 

Hunk and Lance arrived together, Hunk likely having had to drag Lance out from his headphones. Both of them went pale at the sight before them, only able to ask what had happened before Coran and Allura made it to the paladin quarters. 

Once everyone had arrived, Pidge stood. “Hunk, can you carry Shiro? We need to get him to a healing pod, like now!”

“Gotcha,” Hunk looked a little queasy with concern, but he lifted Shiro gently into his arms; Hunk was able to carry the second largest paladin with ease. They started off at a run towards the medical bay.

“Pidge,” started Allura, her glittery eyes wide, “I understand you were the first to find Shiro. Do you know what happened to him?” 

“Only an idea,” Pidge started, addressing the whole conscious group as they ran. “I was starting to worry that Shiro wasn’t eating enough after he didn’t show to both lunch and dinner the past few days, so I brought him dinner last night, as you all know. The only thing is I happened to be near the kitchen later when Shiro brought back his dish. He didn’t eat any of it, and didn’t take anything else instead.”

“Really?” Hunk’s frown deepened, “I mean, he’s hardly been eating at breakfast, but I just assumed he was eating later without us.”

“I did too,” Pidge continued, “But after seeing him in the kitchen last night I kinda sorta decided to follow him around to make sure he was okay?” Pidge expected strange looks from that, but honestly in the current situation, the rest of the team was just grateful that Shiro had been found when he was. “So I got up early to follow him and he was just passed out in his doorway? I don’t know how long he was like that before I found him, but his right arm is in ribbons. It looks self inflicted.”

“Self inflicted?” Lance paled further, genuinely unable to comprehend why someone would deliberately injure themselves, let alone to the degree of destroying an entire arm, prosthetic or not. “Wouldn’t that hurt?”

Keith’s response was quiet, “That’s kinda the whole point, Lance.”

Coran and Allura shared a look of bewilderment; to their vast knowledge, deliberate self harm was not a behavior present, even rarely, in Alteans. They had never heard of it before. “What do you mean, ‘That’s the point’?” Coran pressed. They were getting close to the medical bay now. 

Put on the spot, Keith stuttered, “I-I dunno, just that it’s a coping mechanism a lot of mentally ill people tend to develop? It can, you know, relieve emotional pain with the rush of endorphins and all that.” Not that Keith had ever self harmed… Not that Shiro had learned about it from him…

“So it’s a form of self medicating then,” Allura concluded. “I understand,” really, she didn’t. 

Finally, they were through the medical bay doors. “Set him down here,” Allura instructed, motioning to a gurney. “It will be best if we get him into a medical gown before placing him in the cryo tube.” 

Modesty be damned, the team worked seamlessly to prepare Shiro for medical care. Hunk kept the gurney steady, Pidge removed Shiro’s top, Keith and Lance his shoes and pants, while Coran dug out a medical gown and Allura prepped a pod. The urgency of the situation was all that kept them from stopping to gape at the horrendous scars Shiro’s disrobing had revealed; there were burns and slashes, puncture wounds and deep gouges. Hardly any of his skin seemed untouched. 

After Shiro had been changed, Pidge gently lifted his right arm for a moment, trying to better assess the damage. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to repair this prosthetic. There might just be too much damage,” they stated with resignation. 

Hunk and Coran were beginning the task of easing Shiro into the healing pod. 

“We can’t know that just yet,” Allura said, ever hopeful. “Galran weaponry may be more advanced than ours, but I doubt their medical technology is comparable.” 

It turned out, unfortunately, that the cryo pod could only heal the lacerations in Shiro’s right bicep. Malnutrition, damaged prosthetics, and post traumatic stress all needed more complicated, more nuanced care. 

In the very least, the pod was able to deliver a readout of Shiro’s condition. Only then, really, did everyone start to realize how long Shiro had been suffering. 

“His cortisol levels are really, really high,” murmured Lance, sounding out of breath. The responding looks earned a, “What? Both my parents are doctors.”

“But you didn’t know about self harm?” That was Keith.

“They’re doctors, not shrinks!” Remarkably, the sobering situation kept Lance from arguing further. Even he knew when enough was enough. “That means he’s been really stressed out for a really long time. Like constantly.”

“He was a prisoner of the Galra for over a year though, so that makes sense?” figured Pidge. 

“But it doesn’t seem to have gone down since then. He escaped a couple months ago, guys. The reading should’ve gone down a lot by now.”

“Oh…”

When the cryo pod was done healing Shiro’s arm, they gently returned him to the gurney. Coran had the most medical training of the group, and though he was not versed in human physiology, a little coaching from Lance got him to where he needed to be. Because it was clear now that Shiro was rather severely starved, they inserted an IV into his hand to start replenishing those nutrients and calories. Meanwhile, Pidge started running scans on Shiro’s prosthetic to assess the extent of the damage and what could be done to repair it. Despite Shiro’s abysmal state and persistent unconsciousness, the situation’s outlook was not a negative one. 

...

Shiro was out of the cryo pod for ten hours when he finally began to return to wakefulness. Pidge had refused to leave his side, promising to alert Keith and the others immediately if anything changed--Keith had only left a short while ago, simply unable to stay still. When Shiro started to come to, eyelids fluttering and body going tense, they sent a notice over the comms. 

Waiting for everyone to arrive, Pidge held onto Shiro’s flesh and blood hand. “Hey, you’re okay Shiro. You’re okay now.”

...

Everything was painful when Shiro came to. His arm seared like white hot fire, sending spasms of hurt through his entire body with every breath. He didn’t feel dizzy or lightheaded anymore, but that wasn’t exactly reassuring. Shiro could feel the stiffness of a medical bed below him, and the scritch of matching sheets against his skin. He couldn’t really remember where he was or why. He remembered the observation deck, the stars, and being furious with himself for being so weak, but everything after was a haze. Everything except for the knot of dread in his stomach. 

With how terrible he felt, it made sense that Shiro wanted to drift back into unconsciousness. Distantly, he knew he was too worn out to dream, and that resting now was safe, that he could just give himself up to the void. His traumatic memories were distant now, somewhere they couldn’t hurt him, even in the face of the pain. 

Yet, a gentle voice beckoned him to wake. He could feel a small, soft hand in his, a familiar presence next to him. ...Pidge? ...Was he in the ship’s medical bay? What had happened? He had been found out? Had they seen his arm? Had they seen how weak and pathetic he was?

Even without all these questions, Shiro wasn’t sure he wanted to wake up. He didn’t want to go back to the nausea, flashbacks, and self-hatred if he could help it. He didn’t want to feel the shame at having failed to keep his situation under control. He didn’t want the team to see him suffer--he was their leader, he couldn’t afford to show weakness; they all deserved better than that. Realistically, he knew it was too late, they all had probably already seen everything he had been struggling for so long to hide. But that made giving up, succumbing to the pain, all that much more appealing. Dying from complications from being a Galran prisoner surely wasn’t an uncommon thing, even for one who had escaped. If he gave up, he’d never have to live with the shame of being so weak, of being unable to protect one crew, of being unfit to lead the other. They all deserved so much better than him… Deserved someone who wasn’t a pathetic failure… They deserved so much more...

Suddenly, voices were yelling over Shiro. Hands flurried over him, igniting sparks of pain that fought to bring him back to the surface. “Shiro! Wake up!”

“Something’s wrong, why is his heartbeat so slow?!”

“He’s not responding, why is he not responding?!”

“Shiro you can’t die! We just got you back!”

“Oh god... he isn’t breathing!”

“Shiro, stay with us, c’mon! Hey!”

When the chest compressions began, Shiro recognized the voices to belong to Pidge and Keith… the two people he cared for most. He couldn’t leave them, but such a big part of him wasn’t strong enough to stay. He couldn’t go back to the pain and the memories and the lack of control. He couldn’t go back to hurting himself just to be able to breathe. But neither of them deserved the pain of losing someone they cared about… even if their care was misplaced, even if he was a waste of a life and a pathetic failure. He couldn’t do that to them. 

At the sixth chest compression, Shiro’s mind was made up. He would stay and go back to every moment of agony, just to spare the team from the pain of losing him. It was true that they deserved better than him, but they also didn’t deserve the grief of losing him. Allowing that would truly make him a monster. 

...

Gasping and coughing, Shiro finally woke. His eyes were wild and dazed, flickering back and forth to the growing number of faces surrounding him. He sucked in air like a pilot rescued from being spaced, chest lurching as it expanded and compressed. Then the pain hit, and his back arched up off of the gurney, a cry tearing from his lungs. His human hand ripped away from its grip in Pidge’s to claw at his prosthetic arm, as if that could somehow help. The sharp edges of the lacerations in the metal cut into the pads of his fingers, but that was nothing in the face of the blazing pain. 

The hands holding him down were strong but gentle, surely belonging to Hunk, but the tactile stimulation to his right shoulder, even though it was flesh and bone, was agony. The synthetic nerves ran deep, and whatever was supposed to regulate them seemed to have been damaged… 

Pidge couldn’t stand the sight of watching Shiro struggle so devastatingly. “The pain is clearly localized to his right side, something is wrong with his arm!” Grabbing for the tablet that had been running diagnostics on Shiro’s arm for the past ten hours, they began to scroll through the results, frantically looking for something that would explain such agony. 

“What is it, what’s wrong?” urged Lance, looking over Pidge’s shoulder at the screen. He couldn’t make any sense out of the garbled lines of Galran, Altean, and English.

Pidge shook their head, “I don’t know. It’s too weaponized for me to be able to tell what it’s doing to his body. It’s just firing back and forth too much electricity for me to figure out what’s wrong.”

“Wait, let me see that,” Allura stepped closer, urging Keith to the side. She took the tablet into her hands, studying the readout for a moment. “This isn’t because it’s a weapon. That’s the arm’s neural interface that’s overloaded,” she explained, dread in her voice. 

Save for Shiro’s labored breathing, the room went quiet. 

“So he’s just overloading in pain?” asked Keith, looking very pale. “That’s why he blacked out?”

Allura nodded solemnly, and Coran responded, “Pain, and the starvation, probably.”

“Well we should give him something for it right? Space morphine? You guys have that right? You have painkillers, right?” Hunk insisted, speech getting progressively faster and more distressed. 

“We do,” supplied Coran, “But since the nerves causing the pain are synthetic, it might not work…”

“Well there’s only one way to find out!” Keith demanded, anguish visibly growing at Shiro’s continued sounds of pain. 

“You’re right. Hold down his left arm. I need to get it into the IV without it thrashing about.” Coran rushed to a cabinet, rummaging through it for a moment to retrieve a syringe with a rather thick needle. Once Shiro’s arm was held steady, he inserted the needle into the port of the IV still running into the paladin’s hand. 

Lance stepped over to the foot of the gurney, next to where Allura had moved to. “If it doesn’t work, we can just sedate him, right? Or keep him in the cryo pod? At least until Pidge and Allura can repair the damage?”

Pidge and Allura shared a worried glance. “I don’t know if it’ll be that simple,” Pidge started. “There’s a lot of tests we need to run before we can know if we even can fix it.” They looked down at Shiro and ran their hand through his hair comfortingly; the painkiller seemed only to be making his movements sluggish, rather than less painful. “This isn’t going to be like reprogramming Rover, just doing some rewiring and a full reboot. This is high end Galra tech, and Rover was just a cheap drone…”

Because the anaesthetic wasn’t capable of assuaging Shiro’s pain, the next option was indeed to sedate him. A medically induced coma was the best choice, since they’d likely need a few days to determine what was wrong and come up with a solution, while still having access to his arm. They had just gotten Shiro back, but before long he was unconscious again, safe from the pain.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo 10k words!!! holy shit that's a milestone i have not hit in YEARS! especially in the span of one week???? holy crow!
> 
> So i hate to break it to you guys (/sarcasm) but it looks like we're going in for four, maybe five chapters. I really think i'll be able to wrap it up in the fourth, but who the hell knows lol
> 
> either way, enjoy! and THANK YOU for the continued readership!

It took two days, but Pidge and Allura found a solution worthy of waking Shiro up from the medically induced coma they had put him in to spare him from the pain. It was temporary and crude, but it was a solution nonetheless. They had created a small device that, when plugged into a port in Shiro’s arm, completely disabled the prosthetic. While it did leave him with a dead arm, it would not cause him any pain. Their plan of action from there on out was to consult Shiro regarding its repair or removal--both of which being difficult and time-intensive tasks.

They eased Shiro back into wakefulness slowly, from the comfortable bed they had settled him into. Pidge and Keith were at his left side, Pidge holding Shiro’s hand and Keith resting his hand on his shoulder; when he began to stir, Keith gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Hunk and Lance were at the foot of the bed, and Allura and Coran were at the right. Shiro’s right arm had been put in a sling. 

As he awoke, the first thing Shiro noticed was the lack of pain. Was he dead? He simply couldn’t fathom a reason for the pain to have stopped. He almost felt at a loss without it, having been in constant agony for so long. But with the pain gone, Shiro was able to breathe, to think. There was nothing to trigger the horrible memories and thoughts lurking in his mind, and for the first time in well over a year he felt human again. 

His eyes were bleary when he opened them, but his sight didn’t need to be clear to recognize the warm, relieved faces surrounding him. Pidge squeezed his hand, earning a groggy smile from the broken paladin. “Welcome back,” they grinned.

Diligently, Coran leaned in to check that Shiro was rising properly from the medically induced coma. A penlight shone in Shiro’s eyes revealed both that his pupils were reactive, and that his reflexes were intact. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Still not fully awake or aware, and definitely not having remembered why he had just woken up in the medical bay, Shiro responded, “Three. What happened?” His voice was low and strained; his throat was very dry.

Shiro’s question earned a look of concern shared between the group, but instead of answering, Coran continued with his short battery of tests. “Now how many?”

“One.”

“Now follow it with your eyes.” Coran moved his finger up, down, left, and right. 

“Please, guys, what happened?” Shiro pressed, moving to push Coran’s arm down with his right hand. His bicep moved obediently, but the rest was just dead weight. Shiro looked down at the wrapped prosthetic where it hung in the sling, first with an expression of confusion, then a dreadful look of realization as the memories came rushing back. “Oh…”

“Hey, you’re okay now,” urged Pidge, attempting to redirect Shiro’s attention. “We figured out how to make the pain stop.” Pidge and Keith both felt Shiro go stiff. 

Sure, Pidge got the part about it not hurting right, but he was far from okay… “Thank you, guys. I feel so much better.” Honestly and completely, that was a lie. And Shiro felt all the worse for it. Maybe he wasn’t in physical pain anymore, and he wasn’t being reminded of his time as a prisoner, but judging by the dark circles under everyone’s eyes, he had put them all through days of stress and worry. That was not okay. He was a failure of a leader for letting himself fall into such a position. What if they had needed him? What if the castle had been attacked? He never should have let things get so out of control. 

They were silent for a while as Coran checked his heart rate and breathing, and Shiro struggled not to show his rapidly growing anger. He remembered falling in his doorway and blacking out, as well as waking up on a gurney in agony, ready to give up. He remembered the anger, disgrace, and shame he felt, as well as his decision to bear through it to spare them anymore pain. But now that he was awake and aware, he realized that it may as well have been too late to make that decision: he had lost control and let things get too bad, and had surely ruined everything. Now they knew what he had done to himself, and as a result they probably all thought that he was a pathetic, miserable, useless, waste of space. By now they had to know that he was not fit to lead them--leadership was not a position for someone so weak. Behind those relieved smiles he had woken to surely resided disgust. 

“Shiro,” Keith started, taking his hand from the paladin’s shoulder to fidget nervously, “Your entire right arm was in really bad shape when we found you… the damage looked self inflicted. Do you wanna tell us about that?” The question only served to confirm Shiro’s suspicions. The tension in Keith’s voice could only be from disgust and anger, rather than fear or concern. 

Shiro swallowed, despite his dry mouth. Knowing that they despised him was nothing compared to being asked to explain how pathetic he was. “It’s nothing you guys need to worry about,” he said, trying to sound strong and unaffected. 

Lance balked, gripping the footboard with whitening knuckles, probably coming off way too harsh, “Like hell it’s not! Pidge found you passed out and half starved three days ago. You need to tell us what’s wrong so we can help you!” Pidge nodded solemnly in agreement. 

Shiro pulled his hand from Pidge’s--how could they even want to touch him, let alone be near him, after seeing how broken he was? He gripped the sheet of the bed in frustration, feeling more and more boxed in by the people standing at his bedside. “I can handle this on my own.”

“Clearly, you can’t!”

Shiro bit back the rising anger and frustration, not wanting to misdirectedly snap at Lance when he was only angry at himself, “You’re right, I failed. I fucked up. But it won’t happen again, I promise you that.” Before anyone could try to convince him otherwise, Shiro forced himself out of the bed, nearly toppling Pidge and Keith in the process. Wearing nothing but the sling, boxers, and the medical gown, Shiro stumbled to the door of the medical bay. Adrenaline and genuine fear rose in his veins as he looked back at the team, ready to run if they came after him. 

Lance and Keith both stepped forward, mutual frustration not actually directed at each other for once. “You’re in no shape to leave the medbay, Shiro!” barked Keith. “You just woke up from a fucking coma! You need to stay in bed!”

“I’m sorry I put you all through this,” Shiro frowned, leaning more heavily on the doorway than he would have liked. Just as Lance and Keith started advancing towards him, Shiro turned and ran.

“Let him go,” sighed Allura. “He won’t get far with that arm.”

Pidge came up to stand between Keith and Lance, putting a hand on each of their shoulders, “He’ll be okay. He probably needs some space right now.”

Keith threw up his arms in exasperation, “He had plenty of space before this, and look where that got him!” 

“Shiro’s probably terrified right now, guys,” said Hunk.

Lance and the others turned to face the yellow paladin, confused. “Terrified of what?” Lance asked. 

“I mean, with all of us closing in on him and asking prying questions and stuff…”

“I don’t understand how you came to that conclusion?” asked Coran.

“Well I looked up causes of high cortisol when Pidge and Allura were fixing Shiro’s arm, and I don’t know for sure but after being a prisoner for a year it makes sense that he would have PTSD?” Hunk shrugged, knowing he wasn’t qualified to diagnose anyone. “Like, I get scared when people ask me too many questions, and after what Shiro’s been through…?”

“P-T-what?” Lance scratched his head. 

“Post traumatic stress disorder,” continued Hunk. “My uncle has it and sometimes even just talking about it sends him into a panic. That, and he keeps to himself all the time. My aunt says that even after he has a breakdown, he won’t admit he isn’t fine.”

“That sounds a lot like Shiro right now,” Coran frowned. 

Pidge sat down on the edge of the bed, adjusting their glasses, “I came to the same conclusion as Hunk. It explains why he hurt himself too. For whatever reason, he didn’t feel safe asking us for help, so he figured out a way to help himself.”

“Why would he think he couldn’t ask us for help? We’re part of the same team,” asked Allura, the millions of possible reasons Shiro felt unsafe passing through her mind only serving to exacerbate her concern. 

“I don’t know,” was all Pidge could say. 

Keith huffed in exasperation, “Whatever his reason is, it’s a stupid one. I’m gonna go find and slap some sense into that dumbass.” Before the others could attempt to stop him, he stormed off. 

...

Keith searched the castle for hours, eventually joined by Pidge, but they never found Shiro. It was clear that he had been to his quarters; his closet was open and the medical gown was strewn on the floor, along with his helmet and the top half of his paladin uniform, but there were no other signs of him. Neither the red or green lions knew where Shiro was, and when they came up to the black lion in its bay, it sat silent and motionless, ignoring their pleas. Shiro must’ve told it not to talk to them. 

When they all congregated at the kitchen and dining room several hours after Shiro disappeared, it became apparent that he had stopped here on the way to wherever he was hiding. The team found some relief in knowing that, in the very least, Shiro was eating again. 

...

Shiro wasn’t thinking, overcome by guilt and shame, and he soon found himself coming up to the paladin quarters without even realizing he had been heading there. It was stupid to come here, and when he made it into his room, still askew from days ago, he locked the door behind him. Shiro leaned his back on the door, gasping to catch his breath. He couldn’t help feeling the loss of his arm; he was hyper aware of the lack of sensation, painful or otherwise. After all, Shiro had not gone long without some sort of substitute for his right arm, and thus had never had to cope with the loss of usage, rather only with the loss of part of his humanity. 

He was an idiot, wanting to be strong for them, thinking he could force himself back into one piece. They didn’t deserve to have to worry about him, so he had to fix himself, but every once of his body was telling him now to run. To run because he had failed them, and there was no salvation; they had seen him break, and there was no way they didn’t hate him for it. It was a reflection of his weakness, thinking he could fix the way they saw him now, thinking they could ever see him as anything but a disgrace. 

After catching his breath, Shiro was still dizzy and weak from the medicine that had kept him under, but he was cognizant enough to formulate a plan. Changing into more appropriate clothes was the start, which proved difficult to accomplish around a sling and motionless arm. He managed, however, ending up in the bottom half of his paladin suit and a plain black tank top. He didn’t like leaving his scars out in the open, but there was no sense in hiding them now. He didn’t bother bringing the rest of his suit with him, let alone his helmet; the suit wasn’t necessary for flying, and he definitely didn’t want anyone to try to talk to him over the comms. On top of that, he didn’t have time to pull the tracker out of his helmet. 

Pressed against the wall, Shiro hit the button to open his door. Peeking out and listening carefully revealed the coast to be clear, though surely not for long. He took off down the hall opposite the way he had come, making his way to a secret passage he had found just past the shared bathroom. The passageway led deeper into the castle, splitting into multiple directions. Following his internal compass, Shiro continued on towards the castle’s kitchen. He needed to stay strong, especially now that the pain and subsequent nausea were gone. Currently, his plan was to take as much food as he could carry in the pack he had taken from his room, and then continue on to whatever remote corner of the castle he’d end up hiding in. 

Truthfully, Shiro wanted to leave the ship. He wanted to climb into his lion, into a pod, anything, and escape. But every single one of those required two hands to pilot, and that was not something he was physically capable of right now. He had gotten a good enough look at the device Pidge had plugged into his arm while he was changing to figure that removing it would give him back the use, albeit limited, of his arm. The only thing stopping him was the pain. The agony that drove him to starve himself, to losing his will to live, to failing the only people he cared about. Unless he ran out of places to hide, or the situation changed for the worse, he would have to stay.

For the past several weeks, Shiro had been ignoring the black lion’s pleas of concern, to the point that the lion had actually given up trying to talk to him. But now, it sensed his renewed anger and hurt, and renewed its attempts to get through to him. Shiro almost stumbled in the narrow passageway when the black lion resumed communication, the sheer amount of worry and images coming into his mind overwhelming him. Shiro could see Pidge crouched next to his comatose body the night he collapsed, could see the paladins standing around his bed waiting for him to wake, could see Keith searching the castle for him. Rather than the usual purr the lions made as they communicated, Shiro could hear feline-like mechanical whines of concern. 

_Please,_ Shiro thought to the black lion, continuing on his way, _You know I can’t go back, not after I they saw how weak I am._

In response, the lion flooded his mind with images of him defending the team, fighting, being strong: images that only sufficed to remind Shiro of all the times he had failed. The black lion sensed this, whining again. 

_I’m sorry, I know you just want to help. But for everyone’s sakes, I have to be alone. They don’t want me around, and I can’t cause them any more pain._ If he could have, Shiro would have clenched the fist of his prosthetic hand. _When they come to you looking for me, don’t tell them where I’m going. Please._

Reluctantly, the lion agreed, but not before reminding him again that he was wrong. It didn’t take. 

Eventually, Shiro ended up in the escape pod bay. The passageway opened up onto the rafters above, where he decided to stay--if there were any cameras, he’d be out of their range here. Across the way was what seemed to be a maintenance alcove that looked big enough for him to settle down into. Getting there, however, required crossing the narrow rafters over the hangar. 

Remembering his military training, Shiro lowered to his hands and knees. He had managed to arrange the backpack he was carrying to both stay flat on his back and help hold his right arm close to his chest. Crawling across the rafter was no easy business, especially with only one working arm, and Shiro had to stop to steady himself on multiple occasions, lest he fall. When he finally made it across, he was dripping with sweat and shaking. He laid down in the alcove, taking his time to catch his breath and calm down. He’d be safe here, at least for a little while. 

Just when Shiro was steady enough to sit up, he heard someone enter the hangar. Two someones actually, as he heard Keith and Pidge begin to call his name. Panic rising in his chest, Shiro pressed himself into the wall of the alcove. What would they do if they found him? He couldn’t stand being hated by the people he cared for, even if he deserved it, and he certainly could not face them. He couldn’t imagine them hurting him, not physically at least, but their looks of disapproval and their knowledge of what he had done to himself, how he had failed them, were enough for him to stay away, enough for him to know that they didn’t want him around. He would have to stay away until he could find a way to be strong enough to be worthy of being part of their crew again, let alone their leader. He couldn’t let himself break apart, not again, never again; he couldn’t hurt them again. He had to find a way to regain their trust and support… But was that even possible? Would they ever be able to see past his disgrace? Would he ever be worthy of that? Maybe he should leave after all...

...

Keith and Pidge entered the emergency escape pod bay at a run, their search growing more hasty as more time elapsed from when Shiro left the medbay. It had been almost two hours by now, and even though they had no intention of giving up any time soon, Shiro had likely found somewhere to hide by now. While no pods or lions had left the castle--Allura would have alerted them if any had--that didn’t mean that Shiro wasn’t planning on escaping. They had checked the lion bays, the cargo pod hangars, the shuttle bays, and now the escape pod bay. So far, there had been no sign of the black paladin. 

“Shiro!” called Keith, heading to the left side of the hangar. 

Pidge took the right side, running up to the closest pod. “Shiro, are you here?”

Each craft was empty, filling the two paladins further with exponential worry. They were running out of places to check, but they pressed on for hours more nonetheless. It was obvious that Shiro did not want to be found, and was the most capable out of all of them to accomplish that, but it wasn’t until they had checked every logical place that Pidge and Keith started to lose hope. 

“If I could just talk to him,” murmured Pidge as they met up with the rest of the team in the dining area. “Maybe I could figure out how to help him.”

“Like I said,” spat Keith, venom aimed partly at Shiro but mostly at himself for being so blind, “I’ll beat some sense into him. Thinking he could play deserter on us.” Keith’s voice got very quiet, “After he was gone for so long…” 

Lance spun in his chair to face Keith and Pidge, “Maybe we could just call for him over the intercom? Tell him we just want to talk and help him feel better?”

Keith and Coran perked up at that idea, but the others displayed varying degrees of disagreement. “No way, man,” Hunk said pointedly. “If he freaked out at all of us being at his bedside, then he’s not gonna want to come out of hiding for an intercom request.”

Allura nodded in assent, “It did seem to be Keith’s asking Shiro about his arm and Lance’s outburst that set him off, as well. We don’t want another overtly prying interaction to trigger him further, especially since he clearly has not felt desperate enough to leave the castle.”

“Shit, you’re right,” hissed Lance, feeling at a loss for what to do. He wanted to help, but he didn’t know how. 

“Maybe Pidge was right about giving him his space…” admitted Keith, visibly still at war with the idea. 

“I mean…” started Pidge noncommittally, voice trailing off. “He can’t hide from us forever, right?” 

No one seemed to have an answer to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to apologize if any of Shiro's parts seem incoherent, but i don't think there's really a 100% clear way to depict the conflicting thoughts of self worth he's having. going back and forth between wanting to prove himself and being convinced he'll never be able to is hard. he wants them to love him but he thinks they irremediably hate him :( poor guy


End file.
